[Xmca-l] AAA 2017 CFP Panel - "Culturally Responsive STEM Education with Neoindigenous Communities"

[lachnm]

Dear XMCA Colleagues,

KiMi Wilson and I are organizing a panel for the 2017 American 
Anthropological Association meeting in DC that explores culturally 
responsive STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) 
education in the context of "neoindigenous" communities. Below is the 
CFP. Please submit and share if your networks!

Call for Papers: Culturally Responsive STEM Education with Neoindigenous 
Communities

American Anthropological Association 2017
Washington, D.C. November 29th - December 3rd.

Chairs: KiMi Wilson (California State University, Los Angeles); Michael 
Lachney (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Organizers: Michael Lachney (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); KiMi 
Wilson (California State University, Los Angeles)

To emphasize 21st century education as both a colonizing and 
assimilationist project in United States’ urban centers, Emdin (2016) 
advances the language of neoindigenous to conceptualize the 
institutional positions youths of color occupy when schools and teachers 
treat their cultural identities as deficits to classroom learning. What 
are the limitations and affordances of this conceptualization? American 
Indian boarding schools of the 19th and 20th centuries sought to 
assimilate indigenous children into cultural norms of the white 
colonizers. Similarly, urban schools often foster environments where the 
pathways for academic achievement come at the expense of students’ 
authentic expressions of self and community. Unlike indigenous 
peoples—who are identified by associated geographical locations that 
predate colonial occupation—neoindigenous makes both different and 
overlapping facets of colonialism and racism explicit by positioning 
urban youths of color in school systems that exist at the intersections 
of cosmopolitanism, marginalization, displacement, and diaspora. Emdin 
argues that conceptualizing urban youth as neoindigenous creates new 
vantage points from which teachers and researchers can recognize the 
socio-historical complexities between dominant institutions and 
marginalized communities in the development of better culturally 
responsive education. This raises the question of application: How can 
the conceptualization of urban youths as neoindigenous innovate 
culturally responsive pedagogy in those subject areas where communities 
of color are most underrepresented, namely STEM (science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics)?

While increasing the representation of communities of color in STEM has 
become a national priority in the U.S., less attention has been paid to 
overcoming the Eurocentric and white middle class standards of STEM 
education that (re)produce underrepresentation in the first place. To 
speak to the 2017 AAA meeting theme about why “anthropology matters!” 
this panel highlights ethnographic and teacher action research on the 
development and implementation of culturally responsive STEM education 
in the context of neoindigenous communities. How can anthropological 
theory and practice help develop more nuanced understandings of 
neoindigenous communities for culturally responsive STEM instructional 
practices? What challenges and tensions arise between STEM education and 
the culturally situated knowledges of neoindigenous communities? To what 
extent can culturally responsive STEM education challenge colonialism 
and racism in schools? During this panel we will include but not limit 
discussion to the following:

·  	The limitations and affordances of conceptualizing urban youths of 
color as neoindigenous in the context of STEM education.

·  	The development and implementation of culturally responsive STEM 
lessons, curricula, technologies, art activities, and educational 
activism.

·  	The intersections of colonialism, patriarchy, racism, and wealth 
inequality in STEM and schools.

·  	Creating pathways toward de-colonial and anti-racist STEM education.

Please e-mail proposed presentation titles and abstracts (a maximum of 
250 words) to Michael Lachney (michael.lachney@gmail.com) and KiMi 
Wilson (kwilso26@calstatela.edu) by 5PM PST, April 5th. Please use the 
heading, “AAA 2017” when you email your proposals.